


V-Day, V-E Day

by Notfye



Category: Alice by Heart - Sheik/Sater/Sater & Nelson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alfred Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon Era, Celebrations, Drinking, Established Relationship, F/M, V-E Day, V-E Day Celebration, Victory In Europe Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29424810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notfye/pseuds/Notfye
Summary: “—an official announcement will be broadcast by the prime minister at three o’clock tomorrow, Tuesday afternoon, the 8th of May. In view of this fact, tomorrow, Tuesday, will be treated as Victory in Europe Day.”
Relationships: Alfred Hallam/Alice Spencer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is my idea of a valentine's day fic, yes I know it's V-E Day, not V-Day (much to my disappointment), yes I know I already have another WIP that is nearly this exact same premise, however–
> 
> Actually I don't really have a defense. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also yeah I know it's *barely* still Valentine's Day shhhh)

It is hard for Alice to remember what the world was like before the war. 

She was so young when it started—sure, she can remember what 1938 was like, but hardly, as though it’s a faint specter in a dark corner of her mind. It seems to her as though there was never a time before blackouts, before rations, before faraway deaths. That there will never be a time after them.

She hates to start feeling optimistic, because she always feels like she’ll be disappointed. But a week ago Big Ben was lit for the first time since the blackout started, and she can’t help it. It feels like this terrible thing might finally end.

Her roommates, of course, try to tell her that the war is ending and has been for a long time. Alice always replies, “I’ll believe it when it happens.” There has been a cynic living in her since Alfred got called up, and it’s been hard for her to have any sort of faith since then. But Frances and Aggie seem to be more right by the day. There are rumors, now, and though Alice refuses to believe them, she wants to hope. 

On an early May evening, her windows are open to let in the cool air, and Alice sits next to a lamp, mending one of her blouses. The radio sits on her coffee table, the sound turned low. She’s only half listening, anyway, ears trained only for the sound of church bells, the sound that means the BBC is breaking in. 

She finishes her blouse as “Sentimental Journey” fades out and discovers that she’s left her torn stockings in her bedroom. When she comes back into the sitting room, she can just make out mumbling from the radio, and though she knows it’s likely just the announcer saying something about Doris Day, or whoever is up next, she rushes to turn up the volume anyway. 

“—an official announcement will be broadcast by the prime minister at three o’clock tomorrow, Tuesday afternoon, the 8th of May. In view of this fact, tomorrow, Tuesday, will be treated as Victory in Europe Day.”

She grins so hard it nearly splits her head open. Someone, somewhere, lets out a tremendous  _ whoop  _ into the nighttime air. Alice moves to the window and shoves it up as far as it can go. A few others join the first woman and shout triumphantly, too; someone else manages one of those loud whistles with their fingers. 

The announcement on the radio is still going, but she hardly cares. The war is over. 

She gives the sky a grand holler with all the rest. 

By the time Frances and Aggie get back, Alice is sitting at their kitchen table with a pile of scraps, attempting to make tricolored bows for each of them.

“War’s over!” Frances shouts, and Alice laughs. 

“It must be total madness out there!”

“It was,” Aggie says, “But it’s started to rain. You should have come out!”

“I can wait until tomorrow, when everyone’s out.” Besides, all Frances and Aggie do is go down to one of the nearby pubs to flirt and dance with the American GIs. It really is only successful in making Alice sad. It just reminds her of who she’d rather be dancing and flirting with.

“Well, still, it was wonderful. People put their radios on their windowsills and we danced in the streets. I had a feeling we might end up celebrating a little here, though.”

“What do you mean?” Alice asks.

In response, Aggie produces a slim bottle of clear liquid and hands it to her. She opens it and gives it a sniff.

“Where on earth did you get  _ that _ ?”

She smiles in a way that implies she won’t be telling, and Frances says, almost exasperated, “Oh please, we both know she’s a better charmer than either of us.” 

Alice washes out their three cups, the ones that this morning had been filled with a weak tea. She places them on the table and Aggie fills them with about a shot each. 

They each raise their glasses, and there is very little hemming and hawing about what the toast should be. 

Their cheer of “To victory!” comes out gleeful and proud. 

Tabatha arrives on one of the earliest trains into the city the next morning. So early, in fact, that she reaches Alice’s apartment before anyone is up. It takes a solid two minutes of knocking to rouse anyone. Alice finally comes to the door, and when she does, she blinks at Tabatha for a moment, then throws her arms around her.

“How are you here?” she asks, her face pressed into Tabatha’s shoulder. 

“It’s a holiday!” She says cheerfully. “And, I don’t think they know what they’re going to do with us now.” She pulls away, “Let me get a look at you,” and holds Alice by her arms, her own extended all the way. 

Alice looks at her too, sees she’s in her Wren uniform, all dolled up for the celebration. She looks a little older, shoulders a little more square, but she looked like that last time, too. It’s been nearly a year since they’ve seen each other, and even then, Tabatha had already been away for three years. 

Tabatha hugs her once more, quickly. “When did you get so old?” 

“When did you get so  _ proper _ ?”

“I’m not. Unless you mean in comparison,” and she eyes Alice’s nightgown. “Come on, get dressed, the whole city is celebrating!” 

“Yeah, we did a bit of that ourselves last night,” Alice says, glancing at the now nearly-empty bottle on the table. “Frances and Aggie had more than me, we might be a little slow going this morning.” She fills the kettle and sets it on the stove to boil, and then turns to find Tabatha inspecting the little glass bottle. 

“Finish it off if you like,” Alice says as she leaves the room, “I don’t think anyone will mind.”

“It’s 10 in the morning!” Tabatha protests, but she’s smiling.

“Yes, and it’s Victory Day!”

Alice gets dressed as quick as she can manage: navy skirt, white blouse, and red ribbon in her hair. Then, she goes to wake her roommates. Frances groans loudly into her pillow, and across the room, Aggie pulls her covers up and tries to roll over. 

She shakes Frances gently. “Come on, I’m making tea.” She gets another groan in response. “You can go battle Tabatha for the rest of the alcohol if you like.”

That gets her to sit up. Alice moves over to Aggie’s bed and pulls her covers down. 

“Good morning,” Alice says, “We have a guest.”

“The boys are back?” she mumbles.

Alice’s heart stutters in excitement, even though she knows Alfred is not who is sitting in their kitchen. Frances jumps in, half dressed already, one pant leg on, “No, not yet. Tabatha. The Wren lady.”

Aggie hums and sits up slowly, like the walk from her bed to her closet is fraught with danger and she’s getting prepared for it. 

Alice decides that they are well enough on their way and returns to the kitchen. 

She gathers up all the tea cups they have, which now smell faintly of something other than tea. There are also only three of them. 

“Can I offer you a cup of tea served from a water glass?” 

Tabatha laughs. “Whatever you have is fine. I’ll live.” 

Alice uses the last of their tea to serve them that morning. Frances comes into the kitchen shortly after Alice, and greets Tabatha like an old friend, even though, as far as Alice knows, they’ve only met once before. Then, Frances takes the bottle from where Tabatha replaced it earlier, and finishes it in one gulp. 

Alice gives her a look, she grins and says, “Hair of the dog.”

She sighs, and sets the tea cups and water glass around the table. Then, after a moment’s deliberation, she sets out the sugar and milk too. She sits and adds a hefty spoon of sugar to her cup.

They decide to build a bonfire, since it was all so short notice that there’s no organized celebration, and the government announced they could burn anything that couldn’t be used for scrap. But it’s still early, and nearly summer; the sky won’t be dark for some time. So, first, they decide to roam the city.

Near the end of this discussion Aggie finally appears, and they see what’s taken her so long. 

“Wow, Aggie, those look lovely!” Alice exclaims at the two perfect victory rolls framing her face. 

“Mine were never so neat,” Tabatha says with a warm smile. These days, her hair is much more utilitarian, held back by bobby pins behind her temples.

Aggie holds up her fingers in a “V” and then sits down at the table. 

They wait for her to finish her tea and then they head out for the day. They can hear the racket from the street below before they reach it.

When they get outside they find that a substantial crowd has already formed, and in the center of it is a pile of wood. 

“So, I guess we’ll be sharing our bonfire,” Alice says.

There’s all sorts of noise, too: radios propped against people’s windows, the clinking of glasses, the crash of wood being thrown together, and voices everywhere. Some groups are dancing, other people seem to be gathering wood with a single minded intensity. 

Some American comes up to Aggie almost immediately and asks her to dance; Frances decides to hunt around and see if anyone’s thought to bake something. That leaves Alice and Tabatha, who decide to help with the bonfire effort.

The woman who seems to have self-appointed herself to be in charge of the bonfire tells them to look in alleyways for any sort of wood or paper, things that are flammable and can’t be used again.

It takes them much longer than Alice anticipates to find a sizable collection of flammable trash. The whole area has been picked over already for other V-E Day fires, and she wonders how bright the city will look tonight. 

Three in the afternoon comes around eventually, and the street seems to quiet, listening to Churchill’s speech. 

A cheer goes up the street at, “Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King!” and suddenly it is like the party has redoubled its efforts. The music changes to something a little faster, and all at once it seems that everyone is drawn into a dance circle, half doing a messy kickline to the song, the other half clapping to the beat. It's great fun and Alice finds herself laughing at nothing, holding up a “V” for whoever cares to look at it. 

They light the pile of wood shortly after the sun goes down, and enough people get the idea to turn up their radios that the street becomes noticeably louder. In the dark, the whole celebration becomes more strange and wonderful: everyone seems to be dancing, everyone seems to be happy again for the first time in years. 

The King speaks at 9 pm, and the crowd is a little too rowdy to be properly quiet for it. Alice assumes that most people, for lack of any other idea, have been celebrating the same way she, Frances, and Aggie did last night. Still, at the end of the speech, another roar of cheering goes up. Tabatha grabs Alice’s hand, and they dance haphazardly, holding hands, spinning and laughing with glee. 

It’s not long after midnight when their group finally hears that some of the trains of soldiers are coming in, and they decide to go down into the tube stations to wait and see if any of theirs got sent home. 

Alice still hates the tube station, hates those long nights when all she heard was loud, low  _ booms  _ and how the swinging of the shaking lights made her think the whole thing would collapse.

But for Alfred, she’ll wait here.

Aggie has the look of waiting, too: she seems like nerves have suddenly gotten to her, and she’s patting down her hair and reapplying lipstick. Alice knows that she’ll dance with any boy who asks, but you’d have to be a fool to not see that she’s been waiting for someone all these years. 

It’s more fun than tedious, at first. The station is packed, everyone hoping that their soldier is one coming home on the early trains. A few trains do come through and spit out soldiers, but the crowd only seems to grow. 

Then, for around an hour, there’s a long pause where no train comes through at all. The crowd becomes restless, it swells then thins, those that were only there for hope of some extraordinarily early return of airmen or sailors go home. But still, there’s plenty of people waiting uncertainly for infantrymen.

The next train comes through, and Alice can see Aggie looking around the crowd on her tiptoes. The soldiers disperse and she doesn’t ever move. Another train comes and the same thing happens. 

Then, a third train starts unloading passengers, and a tall, brown haired boy steps onto the platform. Aggie bounds over to him, and he meets her in the middle of the crowd, picks her up and spins her around. 

A few minutes later Aggie reappears in front of them.

“Everyone, this is Thomas,” she says.

There’s a great deal of handshaking, and a moment later, it seems that everyone has done the math. It would be impolite to ask if they’d like their own room, but Frances solves that problem rather swiftly all on her own: 

“It’s alright,” she says, “Just pull my mattress into the sitting room before you do anything.” Aggie turns bright red and Thomas ducks his head and smiles sheepishly. Frances gives them an exaggerated wink. 

But, it doesn’t seem as though she’s wrong. Aggie and Thomas do not stick around long after introductions. Alice, frankly, can’t blame either of them. 

It seems that the last train brought enough men to empty out the station. There are still a great deal of people, but many are sleepy, leaning up against walls or propped up on benches. Some begin to drift out and into the night. Enough people have left that Alice is able to commandeer a bench for the three of them.

It hardly matters. The conversation is running dry, not for lack of things to say, but rather from sheer tiredness. Frances stands up and stretches. 

“Well, girls,” she starts, “I think I may go see if there are any nightcaps left in this city.”

“I’m gonna stay here, I think,” Alice says, and tries not to look too longingly down the train tracks. “But, Tabatha, you should go.”

“What?” she asks, “Why?”

“Because I can see how you’re looking at those stairs! It’s alright, you guys can leave me here. The worst that can happen is that I’ll end up sleeping down here. It’s not too bad. I should know.”

“Well, we had cots then,” Tabatha says, but still she stands.

“Thanks for waiting around with me as long as you did. Frances, if I see your brother—”

“I guess I’d be sleeping on the floor, then.” She grins. “But really, I’m pretty sure he’s still out at sea, somewhere.”

“I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear there’s a mattress shoved onto our living room floor waiting for him.”

Frances smiles, one of her real ones, genuine and reaching her eyes. “Thanks, Alice. Goodnight.”

Tabatha echoes her, “Goodnight, Alice. Get some sleep at some point, alright?”

She nods. “Yes ma’am.”

It’s going on three when the next train comes in, and Alice is so tired she’s practically dizzy with it. She wants to be here to greet Alfred, but she promises herself, if he’s not on this train, she’s going home and going to bed. She’ll come back in the morning.

It takes a long time for everyone to get off. She searches the crowd, looking for any familiar faces—she could never, not in a million years, forget Alfred’s face, but Frances’ brother’s takes on a sort of wishy-washy quality where she can no longer recall the details. 

Somehow, he sneaks up on her. He must have been drawing closer while she studied the end of the platform for him. When she turns back, he’s right there, grinning like a fool. 

Alfred hugs her, lifts her up right off the ground and holds her against his chest. 

“Hi,” she says against his ear.

“Hi,” he says back and she can hear the smile in his voice. 

He lets her go, and hardly a moment passes before she kisses him, arms wrapped around his neck. He settles his arms around her waist and holds her tightly against him. 

When they break she stays just a breath away. “Welcome back.”

“Glad to be here.” He smiles so sweetly that it makes her chest hurt. 

The night has settled into a chill while she’s been in the station. They’re holding hands, but Alice pulls Alfred close enough to bump shoulders with him. 

The music, too, is quieter now, as though everyone is either asleep or not quite up yet. The in between hours, the switching of the guard—

“What a night to come home,” Alfred says. 

“You should have seen it earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen London go so wild.”

“I like how it is now. It’s lovely. Where’s the music coming from?” He looks around as though he might be able to see speakers tucked into corners of buildings. 

Alice laughs. “Everywhere. People put their radios up against the windows.”

He looks at her and smiles and it’s like no time has passed at all. “That’s wonderful. So people could dance in the streets?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, we shouldn’t miss out.” He lifts his arm and she turns beneath it. 

“I missed you more than words can say,” he says, and she cannot believe how badly she missed his voice. 

“I know. I did, too.” She turns to face him and kisses him, very gently, rising up on her tiptoes. 

“Do you know what I’m looking forward to most?” he asks. 

Alice shakes her head and can feel herself smiling, very softly. It feels like a sort of magic. 

“I want to sleep together in the same bed again.” 

“My bed is tiny.”

“All the better.” He kisses her cheek. “Alice, we’ve shared a cot before. It can’t be worse than that.”

“As long as it’s you, I’d never complain.” 

The apartment is dark and sleeping when they arrive. Tabatha’s collapsed on the couch, Frances is curled up on her mattress, which has been partially squished beneath the coffee table. Alfred looks at it and then at Alice.

“You weren’t the only one who came home tonight, soldier boy,” she whispers back. She can hear the breath he exhales as laughter. 

She’s never been quite so happy as now to have her own room. She flicks on her light and Alfred looks around.

“This looks almost exactly the same as your room at the boarding house.”

“What can I say, I’m a creature of habit.”

He puts his bag down and stretches. 

Something occurs to her quite suddenly. “Alfred, how long have you been up for?”

He looks at her and smiles uncomfortably and she knows she’ll disapprove of whatever answer he’s about to give.

“Probably, uh, 22 hours.”

She crosses to him and rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones, something she used to do when he was so sick and she wasn’t allowed to hold him. 

“Come on, you were just telling me how badly you wanted to share a bed again.”

He leans into her hands and mumbles, “Alright.” They stay like that for a moment or two, and then Alice pulls her hands away to let him change. She takes off her shoes and stockings, blouse and skirt and pulls on her nightgown in their place. 

Once they’re both in their pyjamas they crawl into bed together, Alfred’s head cradled against her shoulder. She pets his hair. 

“Alice,” he says, soft. 

“Mhm.”

“Can you read to me?”

She feels around on her nightstand until she finds it. She hasn’t read it in quite some time and it makes her feel a little guilty. The glue in the binding creaks audibly when she opens it. 

“Chapter One: Down the Rabbit Hole,” she starts, rather quietly. “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the second chapter of this is just going to be a Further Reading thing, and not an actual second chapter.
> 
> (Also I feel the need to slap a disclaimer on this: the process of demobilization of British troops wasn't started until 6 weeks after V-E Day, and even then, the oldest went home first. However I have chosen to ignore that in the name of love).
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for reading! My tumblr is Notfye, I'm always very willing to talk about abh/wwii in general!


	2. Further Reading

V-E Day in Photos: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/may/08/dancing-in-the-streets-ve-day-celebrations-in-1945-in-pictures  
https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/ve-day-street-party-celebrate-pictures-ww2-history/ 

Global Scale Events of the Day: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-ve-day 

Top 80 Songs 1945: https://playback.fm/charts/top-100-songs/1945 

101 Songs that Won WWII: https://www.allmusic.com/album/101-songs-that-won-world-war-ii-mw0001313416 

Primary Source Celebrating V-E Day in London: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/londonveday.htm   
https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/real-life-accounts-reactions-recollections-ve-day-anniversary/ 

Radio News Announcements from 1944 and 1945: https://archive.org/details/1945RadioNews/1945-05-07-BBC-John-Snagge-Announces-VE-Day.mp3   
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/winston-churchill-ve-day-speech-end-war-ww2-read-full-a9503661.html   
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/king-george-vi-ve-day-speech-end-war-ww2-read-full-a9503761.html 

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that the second chapter of this is just going to be a Further Reading thing, and not an actual second chapter.
> 
> (Also I feel the need to slap a disclaimer on this: the process of demobilization of British troops wasn't started until 6 weeks after V-E Day, and even then, the oldest went home first. However I have chosen to ignore that in the name of love). 
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for reading! My tumblr is Notfye, I'm always very willing to talk about abh/wwii in general!


End file.
